The Private Practice Success Podcast

62. Marketing & Branding in Private Practice: What to Do & When

• Gerda Muller • Episode 62

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In this episode, Gerda breaks down the difference between marketing and branding (spoiler alert: they’re not the same!), why they both matter and most importantly how to know which one your business needs right now, depending on your stage of growth and your goals for the next 12 months.

Gerda shares why marketing and branding in allied health isn’t about chasing algorithms, being pushy, or doing things that feel misaligned. Instead, she reframes it as a purposeful extension of the care you already provide and shows you how to use it to build trust, reduce fear, and help more people find the support they need.

In this Episode, you will learn (among others):

  • The key differences between marketing and branding and why knowing which to focus on can save you time, money, and stress.
  • How to reframe marketing as an ethical, values-aligned way of helping more people.
  • Practical examples of when your business needs a marketing push VS a branding tune-up.
  • Why consistency (not intensity or complexity) is the real secret to growing your practice.

Who This Episode Is For:

  • Practice owners who want clarity on where to invest their time and energy for the best results.
  • Allied health professionals who want marketing and branding to feel natural, ethical, and effective.

Tune in for a practical, empowering conversation that will help you make confident and strategic marketing and branding decisions so you can build a practice you can’t stop smiling about.

Want more info on The Ultimate Admin Training Course?

Email Gerda at gerdam@private-practice-success.com and she’ll send you all the details. 

Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

Well hello there awesome private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 62.  I am super excited about today's topic, because this is a topic that I absolutely love and it is: Marketing & Branding in Private Practice: What to Do (i.e. which of those two), and When. When is either and or both of these right for your level of private practice development. 

Now, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, oh, somebody else talking about marketing, I've heard it all. I want you to stay with me because this episode is not going to be about chasing algorithms. It is not going to be me telling you to just post more on social media. And it's not going to be me talking to you and telling you to do things that feels uncomfortable or feels misaligned for you as a helping professional. Because what I want to do today really is to make sure that we have a shared understanding on what is marketing and what is branding in private practice, and why those two things are not the same, and why it's important for you as a practice owner to know the difference. However, yes, they're different, but they're also very closely linked. So it's your job as the business owner to know, which of these ones should you be focusing on right now in your season of business, for your size of business, given the goals that you have for your business over the next 12 months?

When I speak to private practice owners, you often come to me feeling overwhelmed, confused, and very often very resistant to the marketing function specifically within your business. Which I get, okay, I totally get it. I also know that. It's not because you don't care about marketing or you think you don't need to do it, but I think the issue is that when we do marketing and branding as helping professionals working in allied health, we have to do it differently, and the filter that we apply to what we do and how we do it needs to be different. Like I always say, business principles still reply to us. We are not special, okay? But that doesn't mean that we don't put it through a different filter. It's very important. 

So today I want to spend some time with you just slowing your thinking down when it comes to marketing and branding. I want to help you get real clarity about those two things - so that you back at the practice - can make better, calmer, more strategic decisions about what you need to implement for your private practice. And as always, I'm going to be direct and I will deliver it as gently as I can. Because the thing is, if you don't get this right, you won't have clients, and then you won't have a business. So it's super important to get it right.

Why Marketing Feels Hard in Allied Health

Let's first address the elephant in the room. Why does marketing feel so hard for us as allied health professionals? Yes, I said at the start, I love it and I'm very passionate about it. Marketing to me is a bit of a game because I gamified for myself, but it wasn't like that at the start. Because all of us go to university, I know things might have changed a bit since I was back at uni, but most of us aren't trained in being business owners. We are trained in helping people. We are trained in reducing people's pain, whether that is their mental health pain, if you're a psychologist, or whether it is physical pain, if you're a physio. That's what we do. We are trained to support people in the healing process to help create change for the better for them - that's our clinical skills, it's who we are, first and foremost. So when somebody says, Gerda Muller says marketing, or a practice owner that understands marketing goes to their team and says marketing, it often brings up a lot of resistance.

Possibly for a lot of practice owners listening to this, but also for a lot of clinicians in general. When they hear the word marketing, what do we think? We think selling. We think self-promotion. We think, oh, it's really pushy and salesy, and we associate it with doing something that feels ethically uncomfortable at a level. Sometimes you can't really put your finger on it, but it's just not comfortable. If you've ever had that reaction, know that this is actually a really common reaction. So if you have it, and you're the practice owner, just imagine how your clinicians feel - people that don't have that additional business owner context. So we have to be mindful of these feelings.

I suspect that that way of looking at marketing is there because of the filter that people use when they look at marketing. The good news is this, marketing in our industry is not about convincing somebody to buy something that they don't need. Between me and you, that's actually called sales marketing, and sales are actually totally different functions within business. But for some reason, most people associate marketing with sales, and those two things are completely different. Because when you do your marketing right, when you do it well, when you do it ethically, when you do it in a values aligned, intentional manner - your marketing for your allied health practice actually becomes an extension of the care that you are providing. Let that sink in for a minute. Your marketing, when done well and ethically, is an extension of your care.

Definition of Marketing in Private Practice

For some of you, this is going to be a definition, and for some of you, this is just going to be a reframe. So this is how I look at it - marketing in allied health private practice is the purposeful communication of the value, the expertise, and the impact that your business your practice brings to the people who need you most - that is potential current and past clients. When you purposefully communicate your value, your expertise, and your impact, what it does - and this is the job that marketing has as a business function - it builds trust before that potential client even picks up the phone to call in and enquire. It reduces fear and uncertainty around help seeking behaviour. I could tell you, especially for the clients coming through my practice doors, it is really hard booking that very first appointment with a psychologist. I think a lot of people take it for granted that, oh, you just pick up the phone, you just send in an enquiry. Doing that is hard. You know what's even harder? Walking through the doors, especially when you've got an in-person practice. But still even just showing up on a Zoom call where you need to put your freaking video on and talk about your shit, that's hard to do. Don't take that for granted. Every client that shows up  I am grateful for. And the marketing's job is to reduce fear and uncertainty around seeking help.

It's also about educating our community so that they can recognise when support is needed, because there's way too many people sitting out there suffering in silence, suffering because they think this is just how it should be, right? Life is hard. I can't get better. I just need to settle for my current condition. That's not okay people. That's not okay. And finally, it also makes it easy for the right clients to find you, those clients who you are best suited to help. So at its core, the marketing function in your business answers one very important question and that is, “How can we help?” That's it. Not how do we sell to people, not how do we convince people to come in, but “How do we help you?” When you explain marketing like this to your team of clinicians and even your admin team, something really interesting starts to happen because they are just like all of us. A lot of clinicians equate marketing to selling, and it might be true for your admin people as well, and selling feels uncomfortable in our field because of the work that we do, especially mental health professionals. But when you say to your team - marketing is how we reach more people who are already in pain, and we show them how we can help to relieve that pain - that is what marketing is when we do marketing here at the practice. 

Then suddenly marketing becomes values aligned, because that's why your team of clinicians became helping professionals - to help people in pain, to improve people's lives - and that's what you're doing.  This is not trickery, people, it's just the truth, right? It's the truth. Behind all of this is the fact that if people don't know your business exists, if they don't know how you or your clinical team can help, then you don't get to do your life's best work because then you do not get to help them, and they don't get the help that they need. And that's the part I think a lot of practice owners forget to think about when they're sitting down at their desk and going, shit, there's no appointments in the diary because I've dropped the marketing ball because I don't like doing marketing. And it feels yucky, But when you drop that marketing ball bull, you are actually letting the clients down, and I'm not saying that to make you feel guilty, But if you aren't telling people how you can help, they can't get the help that they need.

Practical Example: Marketing Focus

Let me give you a practical example of when your business needs a marketing focus instead of a branding focus. Imagine you are a group practice owner, and there is capacity within your clinical team. In other words, your clinical team isn't fully booked, there are appointment gaps in the diary. Maybe referrals have been slowing down for whatever reason. In this scenario, your business does not need more ‘brand storytelling.’ That would be an absolute waste of your time, money, and energy at this point in time. What your business needs right now is clear marketing. It needs marketing, which is remember what I said earlier, purposeful communication. Which means that there's a marketing message that you need to put out into the world that clearly communicates who you help, what you help with, and how someone can take the next step. Answering those three things helps answer that question about how we help. 

Now this might look like having a clear website copy that speaks to a client's pain points. Most practices have got amazing websites, really pretty colours and really modern, but the website copy is very generic and it doesn't make it clear. As a client, if I land on your homepage, I want to immediately know the answer to those three questions. It might also look like doing referral education, for example. With local GP’s or local schools or local lawyers, and that is all dependent on your niche and the clients that you work with. It could also look like community education. You know, content that you put out there that reduces that fear and that stigma, particularly with the mental health part side of our industry. 

So for a practice that has clinician capacity and appointment gaps, you now are in a marketing phase. And if you spend your time, like I said on branding, you're going to totally miss the mark and you're still going to be in the exact same situation six months from now, and I don't want that for you. So that's a good segue, then also into, alright, Gerda, I get the marketing, but what about branding? What is branding? Then really, because like I said, people often mix these two things up because they are different, but they're also similar in some ways.

Defining Branding in Allied Health

Let's start with what branding is not. Branding is not your logo, and it's not your colours and it's not how pretty your website looks. Those things are part of branding and it's often those parts that we can go down the rabbit hole because it's so super exciting ,and you might even have your own brand guidelines, which yes, you should have when the time is right. But that's like this really basic level. It's not real branding. And again, people get caught up in stuff like that, which doesn't really move the needle based on the outcomes that you want from engaging in a branding function within your business. Okay, so what is branding? 

So this is how I see it for us as allied health practice owners. Branding is the lived experience that people have AKA potential and current clients every time they interact with your practice. It's how it feels for people when they call and speak to your reception team. It is how clear your systems are that the people are coming into your business. It's the culture that your clinicians experience internally - yeah, it's not only external, it's also internal. Branding people on a side note is extremely essential when it comes to recruitment. It's that consistency of the messaging that you're putting out there. And very importantly, it's the promise you make and keep about the quality of your care. Now, I know what's happening for some of you that are very detail oriented people, you're going, “What promise? I don't make any promises when clients come in.” Yes, we cannot guarantee outcomes. So we, I'm not talking about clinical promises here. I'm talking about that when you come in - this is the level of quality that we endeavour to always provide - like evidence-based, best practice, trauma informed all of those things. 

When you say on your website that that's what you do. I see that as a promise, right? Unless you're telling me you're just putting it on there and it's, it's like, yeah, whether we do it or not, it's not a thing. I see that as a promise. I see that as being in integrity. Because if I say that, that is what we offer, that's, to me is a promise in my neck of the words, So if you're going to say those things, you need to be able to back it the hell up. Alright, very important. So branding answers that question. Who are we?

Remember marketing said, How can we help? Branding says, Who are we? This is who we are. Who we are as a practice. What we stand for. What do people experience when they walk through the doors? Whether that's in-person doors or virtual doors for that matter. Does your virtual telehealth psychologist actually start the frequent session on time? What does that experience feel like when they have to deal with your reception on the phone? How long do they wait for a callback? What is the experience on their website? Is it hard to navigate? All of those things inform your brand. And a strong brand, I'm sure you know this - builds trust, credibility and loyalty - and that is incredibly important for us as a business. And the best of all is this, over time, if you are really good at your branding, it actually reduces the effort required in your marketing, because people already know I can trust you. How cool is that?

Practical Example: Branding Focus

Alright, so now you're imagining, again, you're a group practice owner and the diary is fully booked. You might even have a wait list and still the phone keeps ringing and there's steady referrals coming in. But potentially you might have some other problems. Maybe your team feels a bit disconnected, because all they are doing is seeing clients, seeing clients, seeing clients? Maybe there's some inconsistency in the client experiences happening in the business. Maybe the messaging that you're putting out there feels a bit muddled. Or maybe you feel like I'm just putting it out there because somebody told me I need to post once a day on social media, but it's not really done with a clear goal or process in mind. 

If this is what's happening for your practice, you don't have a marketing problem, you have a branding problem, and your practice right now needs to focus on clarifying your branding position. Who are you as a business, for clients and for clinicians?  Your business needs to focus on realigning values and culture, and ensuring that the experience that people get - and again, this goes for your clients and your clinicians - match the promise that you made. The promise that you made to clients when you told them, this is the level and quality and type of care you can expect from us. And the promise that you made to your clinicians who you said, this is the level of engagement and support that I promise to you as a clinician. You made these promises, you need to back it up. 

In this scenario, instead of asking ‘How do I get more visibility for my business,’ what you're going to be asking is ‘How do we become more aligned and more consistent as a business.’ I would even encourage you, if you're sitting there with a full practice diary, people on a wait list - it's very easy to think, oh, I need to start a new location, I need to hire five other clinicians. Don't do it if you have some of these internal problems or challenges that I've just mentioned. Because all you're doing then is creating bigger headaches and problems for yourself down the track. This is a great opportunity to focus on branding.

Marketing VS Branding (Simplified)

Alright, so let's simplify this if we look at marketing versus branding. Marketing is how we help. Branding is who we are. And you need both of those within your business. But you don't need to - and you probably shouldn't, especially if you are a relatively small to medium still growing group practice - you shouldn't focus on both equally all at the same time because it's just too much, right? That's just setting yourself up for failure, and that's a mistake that I see a lot of practice owners make. They want to do everything all at once, and then they wonder why they aren't coping, and why they aren't getting the results they want. And then in the worst-case scenario, they burn out and they become completely inconsistent in what it is that they're doing. So you absolutely need to start as you plan to continue, and this is where my consistency principle comes in.

The Consistency Principle

This is an incredibly important principle, and I've been teaching this for as long as I've been teaching Private Practice Success Marketing and Branding, and this is that consistency beats intensity every single time. The best marketing and branding plan is not the one that's the most complex, or the coolest, or the one with the most platforms and the most activities. That's not the best one. The best one is a marketing and branding plan that you can, hand on heart, consistently implement. Because consistency builds trust. It's not really the content to that extent. Consistency builds trust, because if I can predict your future behaviour, you are safe, and that means trust. The same holds true for our clients, for your referrals, for your general community. And this is why I always ask the practice I work with, to really be honest with themselves when I ask them, “How much time do you actually have to invest in marketing and or branding every month? Who on your team can support you with this? Do you have protected time in your diary to get this done?” Because you can have the most beautiful marketing plan that never gets implemented, and that helps no one.

I want to really very gently challenge you here, of your marketing or your branding. If you've got a fully booked practice, felt confusing, overwhelming, or inconsistent, that's okay. There's no judgment. This is about getting into and stepping into that awareness, right? And going, alright, now I know what was missing here, maybe that's that consistency. Because for a lot of group practice owners and I work with quite a few, they don't struggle because they are lacking in ideas. Okay? They struggle because they lack structure, prioritisation, and accountability. And that's why I do what I do, because working with a coach, with a business coach, mentor, consultant provides structure, accountability, and helps you to prioritise so that you focus on the right things, the right steps, strategies at the right time in a way that fits your business model, and very importantly, your personal capacity level. Because what do you guys like to do, you like to compare yourself with others. It's so common in our industry, but your capacity and the things that you need to manage and handle in your personal life is probably very different to other people out there. 

Again, we want to be kind to ourselves. We also want to be realistic, yes, we want to keep moving forward and achieve things, but let's do that in a sustainable manner, so that we can be consistent and therefore can build that trust. So if you are listening to this and thinking, I know marketing and branding matters, but I'm not sure what to focus on or how to ensure that I do it consistently. You know,where I am, this is what I do, reach out.  As you might know by now, I do my business coaching consulting within my Private Practice Success Academy, and within The Academy, we don't just talk about marketing and branding in theory. What I do with my members in this actually help them create plans that they can implement, a marketing and branding action plan that aligns with their stage of business, with their size of team and their 12-month goals.  So, we actually recently put together a 12-month marketing and branding action plan as part of our Academy Curriculum and what it allowed the members to do was to plan out. 12 months of marketing and or branding, depending on what was right for their business, starting in March, 2026, all the way through to February, 2027.

We looked at do they need marketing and branding? Do they need a certain combination? What are those proportions that they need? We came up with themes for every month. And then we looked at what strategies are best for this business, and then within that strategy, what are the multiple - because there are many - multiple tactics to choose from, and which of those are the right thing for this practice owner, for their business, their team size, therefore, based on the amount of support that they have to execute it based on their personal capacity. Now, obviously if their team grows significantly, their personal capacity changes, they can go in and adjust it. But it's all together in one Excel document. All neatly planned, which means all they need to do now is execute. And that is that structure that I'm referring to. And of course, with accountability, there's those check-ins. And we've already done the prioritisation by going, ‘What are the themes that make sense for you and your business? What are you promoting? What expansion is happening here?’ So we've made those decisions and like I said, all they need to do now is execute. So that's just to give you a little bit of insight of how we run that within The academy. If you are interested, as always, check out the show notes, it will tell you how to reach out. 

In conclusion, marketing and branding is exciting people. It does not have to feel heavy. It also doesn't have to feel salesy. And it most certainly doesn't have to feel uncomfortable or borderline unethical or misaligned. When you understand the purpose of the marketing and the purpose of the branding within Allied Health, and when you do it properly, like I said earlier. It becomes a natural extension of the care you are already providing within your business.  Write that one down. Write it down somewhere where you can see it every day. When the old doubt and hesitation starts to creep in, I want you to read this sentence: Marketing is a natural extension of the care we provide to our clients. 

Thank you so very much for tuning in, and as always, remember that I am here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about. 😊

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Gerda Muller

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